“When You Hear the Judgement of a Fool... .”[2]

From the Notes of a Social-Democratic Publicist

Published:Published in pamphlet form in January 1907 by theNovaya DumaPublishers.

      Published according to the pamphlet text.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1965,

      Moscow,Volume 11,

      pages456-474.Translated:Transcription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

St. Petersburg, January 15, 1907

Thebourgeois press is now gossiping and cackling over the resolutions of the
St. Petersburg Social-Democratic Conference. The liberals, from the pompous
official organRechto the gutter ragSegodnya, are united in
a general chorus of jubilation over the split caused by the Mensheviks, of
triumph at the return of these prodigal sons of “society” to the
fold of the “opposition bloc”, at their emancipation from
“revolutionary illusions”.

Social-Democratswho are really on the side of the revolutionary proletariat
would do well to ask: “But who are the judges?”

Letus take what is perhaps the best of these judges,Rodnaya Zemlya,
of January 15. The trend of this newspaper is undoubtedly more Left than that of
the Cadets. Judging from all the facts, it may be called a Trudovik trend. As
documentary confirmation of this political estimate we may point out that
Mr. Tan[3]is a contributor to that newspaper. Mr. Tan’s name is
in the published list of members of the organising committee of the
“Trudovik (Popular Socialist) Party”.

Andso, the judges are the Trudoviks.

Theycondemn the Bolsheviks, and, like the Cadets, approve the plan of the
Mensheviks. They disagree with the Cadets only in that they object to the latter
getting more than two or three seats in the general bloc of all the Left
parties.

Suchis the verdict. Let us examine the grounds.

“Thecontroversy undoubtedly centres on the question whether
there is or is not a Black-Hundred danger in St. Petersburg.”

“Thecontroversy undoubtedly centres on the question whether
there is or is not a Black-Hundred danger in St. Petersburg.”

Thatis not true. If you take it upon yourselves to judge the
Bolshevik Social-Democrats in a leading article of a political newspaper, it is
yourdutyto know what you are judging. In that leading article you
yourselves say: “The controversy that has now flared up over the resolutions
of the [Social-Democratic] conference is undoubtedly one of public
interest.” People who express the wish publicly to participate in a controversy
of general interest and at once betray their ignorance of the
“centre” of the controversy run the risk of having a none too
flattering appellation hurled at them....

Therevolutionary Social-Democrats have repeatedly explained and insisted in
all their numerous political declarations that the so-called Black-Hundred
dangercannotbe regarded as the “centre” of the
controversy over election tactics.

Whynot? Because the tactics of the workers’ party during the elections must be
only theapplicationto a particular case of thegeneral
principlesof the socialist tactics of the proletariat. Elections are only
one of the fields, and by no means the most important, most essential one
(particularly in a revolutionary period), in which the socialist proletariat
wages the struggle for liberty and for the abolition of all exploitation. In
addition to the one waged with the aid of ballot papers, there is another type
of struggle, whichinevitablyflares up in times of revolution. This
other struggle is apt to be forgotten by intellectuals who imagine that they
are men of education, whose sympathies for liberty lie no deeper than the tips
of their tongues. And it is apt to be forgotten by the small proprietors, who
stand aloof from the bitter, everyday struggle against capital and its
henchmen. But the proletarian does not forget about it.

Therefore,for the class-conscious proletarian, election tactics can only be an
adaptation of his general tactics to a particular struggle, namely, the election
struggle; under no circumstances does this imply a change in the principles of
his tactics, or the shifting of the “centre” of these tactics.

Thebasis of socialist tactics in time of revolution consists in the progressive
      class, the proletariat, marching at the head of the people’s revolution
      (the revolution that is now taking place in Russia is a bourgeois
      revolution in the sense that the attainment of complete freedom and all
      the land for the people will not rid us in the least of the rule of the
      bourgeoisie; obviously, the fact that the revolution has this
      socio-economic character does not prevent it from being a people’s
      revolution). The progressive class must therefore consistently expose to
      the masses the falsity of all hopes of negotiations and agreements with
      the old regime in general, and of agreements between landlords and
      peasants over the land question in particular. The progressive class must
      pursue its independent line of undeviating struggle, supporting only those
      who are really fighting, and only to the ex tent that they fight.

Suchare the basic principles of socialist tactics, which dictate to the
workers’ party class independence as the rule, and collaboration and agreements
only with the revolutionary bourgeoisie, and only as an exception.

Theliberals do not understand these principles of Social-Democratic
tactics. The idea of class struggle is foreign to them; the idea of contrasting
a people’s revolution to deals and negotiations is repugnant to them. But in
principleallSocial-Democrats, Bolsheviks and even Mensheviks, accept
these tactics. The Trudoviks, who undertake to edit a political organ without
knowing the ABC of the contemporary tactical problems of socialism, can read
about this even in the election platform of the Social-Democratic
Party—the platform of the Mensheviks, who predominate in the Central
Committee.

“Citizens,”states this platform, “you should elect to the Duma
people who not only want liberty for Russia, but are anxious to help the
people’s revolution to achieve it.... The majority in the First Duma, led by the
party of ’people’s freedom’, hoped to obtain liberty and land by means of
peaceful negotiations with the government   Citizens! Elect fighters for the
revolution, who, shoulder to shoulder with you, will continue the great cause
that was initiated in January, October and December last year
(1905).”

The“centre of the controversy”, which our Trudoviks have totally
failed to grasp, is whether agreements with the Cadets can be sanctionedin
principle from this point of view. The St. Petersburg Social-Democratic
Conference answered this question in the negative, as the 14 delegates of the
All-Russian Conference (of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party) had done
before them. No agreements can be tolerated with a party which is bargaining and
parley lug with the old regime. The Cadets cannot be our allies in the
“people’s revolution”. Their admission to the ranks of the
“fighters for the revolution” would not strengthen but weaken these
fighters, whose work is being hindered by the Cadets, who are now openly
opposing the struggle andallrevolutionary slogans.

Infailing to see theprincipleunderlying the attitude of the
Bolshevik Social-Democrats towards the Cadets, our judges have failed to notice
the “elephant”.

TheseTrudoviks are entirely under the ideological influence of the bourgeois
liberals. The elections have over shadowed everything for them; election results
have over shadowed the task of enlightening themassesin the course of
the election campaign. They have no idea how important it is for a
Social-Democrat to carry on perfectly clear, definite and unambiguous election
agitation if he is to remain true to his principles, loyal to his revolutionary
stand point in spite of all efforts to tempt him with the prospect of a seat in
the Duma, or to frighten him with the prospect of not winning a single seat in
the capital. Absorbed in the liberals’ scrapping, the Trudoviks have forgotten
all principles, they have forgotten all the fundamental objects of the
revolution. They see nothing, understand nothing, care for nothing, and only
keep on muttering: “one seat, two seats, three seats”!

...“Thecontroversy ... centres on ... whether there is a Black Hundred
danger in St. Petersburg.”...

...“Thecontroversy ... centres on ... whether there is a Black Hundred
danger in St. Petersburg.”...

Soyou reduce the Black-Hundred danger to the danger of a Black-Hundred victory
in elections faked by the government! Cannot you understand, gentlemen, that
by putting the questionin this way, you are admitting that the
government is already victorious, and that the cause of liberty,which you prate about so much, is already lost? You yourselves do not see, and
    you are preventing the masses of the people from seeing,the realBlack-Hundred danger, which is manifested not in the voting, but in the
    definition of the conditions of voting (the Senate interpretations and the
    impending repeal of the electoral law of December 11), in the nullification
    of the results of voting (the dissolution of the Duma). You are entirely
    adopting the vulgar liberal point of view and are concentrating your
    minds—and the minds of the mass of the people whom you are
    misleading—on a struggle within the limits of a fake law which is
    being still further faked. You fail to see the Black-Hundred danger in the
    form of the possible arrest of all the electors. You throw away that which
    depends on you, and wholly on you, which is at any rate a lasting and
    substantial asset to the revolution, namely: the development of the
    revolutionary spirit of the masses by consistent agitation. On the other
    hand, what you are chasing after depends not on you, but on the artifices of
    Stolypin, on a new Senate interpretation, on further violations of the
    electoral law by the police. Consequently, you are fighting the
    “Black-Hundred danger” in exactly the same way as the French
    bourgeois republicans are fighting the monarchist danger; namely, by
    strengthening monarchist institutions and the monarchist constitution
    within the republic. For, by instilling into the minds of the people the
    idea that the Black-Hundred danger is the danger of an increased
    Black-Hundred vote, you are perpetuating the ignorance of the most backward
    masses as to the real source and real nature of the Black-Hundred danger.

Butlet us proceed. Let us assume that there will be no further Senate
interpretations concerning the elections and the electors. Let us take the
question of the parties that may win the elections in St. Petersburg under the
existing electoral system.

TheTrudoviks cannot deny that the parties of the Right have been seriously
compromised; that the Union of October Seventeenth is suffering defeat after
defeat, each more ignominious than the last; that “of late the Octobrists
have completely subsided, stunned by heavy blows from the Left”; that
“the public has swung to the Left”.

But... Shchedrin long ago translated this “but” of the Russian
liberals into intelligible language: “ears will never grow higher than
foreheads, never!”—but“technical difficulties”,
“literature is not being delivered”, “they won’t give us
ballot papers”, “police restrictions”....

Thereyou have the psychology of the Russian intellectual: in words he is a
bold radical, in deeds he is a contemptible little government official.

Theremedy for police restrictions is supposed to lie in blocs with the Cadets!
Why not blocs with the Octobrists, who “want” a
constitution, and are sure of not being subject ed to “restrictions”?
Truly Russian political logic: electoral agreements to combat the failure of the
post-office to deliver literature, to combat the refusal to issue ballot
papers.... What are you combating, gentlemen?

The“laws” which sanction the outrageous conduct of the police,
which declare certain parties to be “illegal” and deprive them of
ballot papers. How are you combating them?

Why,of course, by means of an agreement with a party which will either obtain
ballot papers from the Peaceful Renovators, or come to terms with Stolypin
before the Duma opens, or else will also be left without ballot papers!

TheRussian government official (a radical at twenty, a liberal at thirty, and
simply an official at forty) is accustomed to play the liberal when at home and
make threatening gestures where nobody can see him. He thinks the election
campaign should be fought along these same lines. Influence the masses?
Nonsense, the post-office refuses to deliver our literature.

Publishand distribute literature without the “post-office” and
similar institutions?

Nonsense!These are obsolete, revolutionary illusions, which are not in accord
with “broad” constitutional activity. Broad constitutional activity
consists in acting so as to fool the authorities; “they” will look
for me among the Social-Democrats, or among the Socialist-Revolutionaries, but
I shall hide in the Cadet list so well that they will not find me. The
government will look for me as a revolutionary, but I shall fool both the
government and the revolutionaries; I shall go over to the “opposition
bloc”. You see what a clever fellow I am!

Butwill it not turn out, Oh worthy politician, that you will be fooling also
      the masses, who will no longer be able to distinguish you from the
      “opposition” of the obsequious liberals?

Nonsense!What do the masses matter?... Well, we’ll give the workers’ curia a
seat.... And then, from a certain point of view, we are all in favour of freedom
... the revolution has become a national cause ... the Cadets, too, are ready
to fight in their own way....

Thequestion arises, have our Trudoviks any political ideas, besides ideas
relating to thepolice?They have. Their idea is that we must adapt
ourselves not to the energetic and active voter, but to the stay-at-home, the
cowed or sleepy voter. Listen to the arguments of a “Left”
newspaper:

“Thetemper that prevails at meetings is no criterion of the temper of the
whole mass of voters.... Not more than one-tenth of the voters go to meetings;
of course, these are the most energetic, lively and active people.”

“Thetemper that prevails at meetings is no criterion of the temper of the
whole mass of voters.... Not more than one-tenth of the voters go to meetings;
of course, these are the most energetic, lively and active people.”

Trulya sufficient reason for trailing in the wake of the least energetic, the
most lifeless and inactive Cadet voters! The tragedy of the Russian radical is
that for decades he has been yearning for meetings, for liberty, burning with
passion (in words) for liberty; and when he goes to a meeting and finds that
its temper is more radical than his own, he begins to sigh: “it is hard to
judge”, “not more than one-tenth”, “one must be a bit
more cautious, gentlemen!” He is just like Turgenev’s ardent hero who ran away
from Asya, and about whom Chernyshevsky wrote “A Russian at a
Rendezvous”.[4]

Oh,you, who call yourselves supporters of the toiling masses! It’s not for you
to go to a rendezvous with the revolution. Stay at home; really, it will be
quieter there; and you need have no dealings with these dangerous “most
energetic, lively and active people”. Stay-at-home philistines are more
your type!

Perhapsthis simple example will help you to grasp the “centre of the
controversy” over agreements with the Cadets?

Itis, my dear sir, that we want to shake up the philistine and make a citizen
of him. And to do that we mustcompelhimto choosebetween the philistine policy of the
Cadets who are prostrating themselves before the (pshaw! pshaw!)
“constitution”, and the revolutionary policy of the socialist
proletariat.

A“bloc of all the Left parties” meanssubmergingthe
“one tenth, the most energetic, lively and active people”, in the
mass of the apathetic, stolid and somnolent. It meanssubordinatingthose who are willing to fight (and are capable of carrying themasseswith them at the decisive moment) to those who prefer to play the same
despicable game of loyalty that the Cadets played in the First Duma, and, like
the Cadet Lvov, prefer to haggle with Stolypin and basely go over to the latter.

Thereaction is attacking us, it has already withdrawn a good third of what was
gained in October, and is threatening to withdraw the other two-thirds. But you
pose as men of law and order and defend yourselves by appealing to philistine
mentality: no attacks; no revolution; we are going into the Duma to legislate;
we confine ourselves todefence; we abide by the law!

Whenwill you understand that to keep on the defensive is in itself an admission
of moral defeat? In fact, you are people who have suffered moral defeat. All you
are fit for is to vote for the Cadets.

“Compelthe philistine to choose”, we said. Yes,compel. No socialist party in the world could wrest the masses from the
influence of the liberal or radical bourgeois parties, which base themselves on
the mentality of the philistine, without giving them a jolt, without meeting
with some resistance, without taking the risk involved in thefirstexperiment to decide who isreallydefending liberty, we or the
Cadets?

Ifthere is an agreement with the Cadets, the philistine hasno needto
worry about this. The radical windbag politicians and Social-Democratic
opportunists have already thought the matter out for him at their rendezvous
with the Cadets. The philistine has shifted to the Left (not as a result of our
efforts, not as a result of ourPartypropaganda, but as a result of
Stolypin’s zeal)—that’s enough for us. And since he has shifted to the
Left, he will be for a “bloc of all the Lefts”! And it will be thewholemass of philistines, notmerely the restive—pardon—active one-tenth of the people. We should
      adapt our meetings and our whole policy to suit the cowardly
      philistine—thatis what a bloc with the Cadets means in
      practice.

Butwe said: We need not only leaflets and platforms, resolutions and speeches,
but we must carry out our whole policy, and election campaign in such a way as
todraw a sharp contrastbetween the cowardly philistine and the
staunch fighter. And this can be doneonlyby contrastingtwo
differentlists: the Cadet list and the Social-Democratic list. In the
metropolis, whose newspapers circulate all over Russia, where the headquarters
of all the political parties are located, which leads the country
ideologically and politically, it is a thousand times more important to give an
example, not of a policy of philistine equanimity, but of a policy worthy of the
October fighters who wrested a little freedom from the authorities, a policy
worthy of the proletariat.

Ourtalk about the necessity of recognising the mistakes of the
“peace-loving” Cadet Duma, and of taking a step for ward, will
remain idle talk unless weourselvestake astep forwardin
combating the philistine Oblomov[5]idea of “a bloc of all the Left
parties”. Our calls to goforwardwill ring false and will fail
to fire the hearts of the fighters among the people if we ourselves, the
“guides”, the “leaders”,mark timein the
capital in full view of all the peoples of Russia, arm in arm with these same
Cadets, on the basis of an“amicable”distribution of
seats, in friendly fashion, all together, all for the same cause, all for
liberty.... What is the use of reviving old quarrels? What harm if the Menshevik
Ivan Ivanovich did call the Cadet Ivan Nikiforovich a goose?[6]

“Notmore than one-tenth of the voters go to meetings.”

Verywell, Mr. Radical. We will take your word for it for once; we will concede
this point to you, because—because your argument is so clumsy.

One-tenthof the voters makes 13,000 out of 130,000 for the whole of
St. Petersburg. These 13,000, the most energetic, lively and active voters, are
more to the Left than the Cadets. Let us ask ourselves: Can anyone of sound mind
and judgement assert that the energetic people who attend meetingsdo not
leada certain number of the less energetic, stay-at-home voters? Everyone
will realise that such an assertionwould bewrong; that in a city with a population of a million and a
half there are thousands of agencies and channels, apart from newspapers and
meetings, through which the mood of the advanced elements is communicated to the
masses. Everyone will understand—and all elections in all countries
confirm it—that every energetic voter who attends meetings is backed by
not one but several stay-at-home voters.

Atthe last elections, of the total of 150,000 voters in St. Petersburg, 60,000
went to the poll. Of these, about 40,000 voted for the Cadets, and about 20,000
in the whole of St. Petersburg voted for the Rights. We have heard from our
Mr. Radical himself, who does not wish to be an “optimist” (Heaven
forbid! our radicals want to be “steady respectable people”... like
the German radicals of the eighteen forties).... We have heard from him that the
Octobrists have become quiescent, and we knowfrom factsof their utter
defeat. Now we hear of 13,000 energetic voters who are more to the Left than the
Cadets. Remember that this proportion varies considerably in the different
districts. Remember the number of votes that are usually behind every voter who
goes to meetings.

Itwill be clear to you then that the danger of a Black-Hundred vote in
St. Petersburg, meaning the danger of the Rights being elected to the Duma as a
result of a split in the Cadet and socialist vote, is apreposterous
fable. For the Rights to be elected to the Duma in St. Petersburg, the
votes in themajorityof the districts would not merely have to be
split, but split in such a way thatboththe Cadetsandthe
socialists would each have fewer votes than the Black-Hundred list. That is an
obvious absurdity.

Therefore,we say plainly: if the Black-Hundred danger does not manifest itself
inviolationsof the “constitution” (and it is the estimate
ofthisprospect that is the crux of the difference between the tactics
of the Cadets and that of the socialists), then a split in the Cadet and
socialist votecannot possiblyresult in a victory for the Rights in
St. Peters burg.

Thecry about the danger of a Black-Hundredvictoryin the elections in
St. Petersburg is adeception of the peoplespread by the Cadets, the
“radicals” and the opportunistsof every brand, and serves the interests ofphilistinismin
    politics.In practice, the fable aboutthisBlack-Hundred
    danger is in the interests of the Cadets, whom it helps to protect againstthe danger from the Left.It serves todullthe senses of
    the masses, for it does not require them, when they cast their vote, to
    distinguish between the “legislating” bourgeois Cadet and the
    socialist who is leading the people into battle.

Therefore,when the general chorus of liberals, Trudoviks and opportunist
Social-Democrats howl at us: You are isolated!—we answer calmly: We are
very glad to have isolated ourselves from a fraud. We are very glad to have
isolated ourselves from a dirty business. For to come before a mass of 130,000
voters in St. Petersburg, after January 9, 1905, and after October 1905, in
order to help to elect Kutler, Nabokov, Struve & Co. to the Duma is
certainly a dirty business.

Wepredict to the Trudoviks and to the opportunist Social-Democrats who are
rejoicing in anticipation that the Cadets will get them and not the Bolsheviks
into the Duma— we predict that if the Second Duma is a Cadet Duma, the
Trudoviks and opportunist Social-Democrats will beashamedof having
helped to elect the Cadets. They will now bedirectlyresponsible for
it. And the Cadets in the Second Duma will move so far to the right (this is
evident from their general behaviour and from all the political literature they
have issued during the past year) that even the extreme opportunists will be
obliged to expose them. In the First Duma, the Cadet Lvov went over to the
Peaceful Renovators and justified the Black-Hundred dissolution of the Duma. In
the Second Duma (unless history brings us a radical change that will wipe out
all petty deals with the Cadets, and all the Cadets themselves), in the Second
Duma the Cadets of the Lvov type will show their true colours not at the end,
but at the beginning.

Wellthen, gentlemen, take the seats in the Duma that the Cadets are offering
you! We do not envy you. We shall undertake to warn the mass of the workers and
of the petty bourgeoisie in the capital. We shall undertake to make them
realise—not only by speeches, but also by means of the elections
themselves—thegulfthat divides the Cadets from the

Everyman to his trade—though “there are hosts of people who would
like to mix these two trades, we are not of their number.”[7]

“Andthey,” says the leading article inRodnaya Zemlya, speaking
of the Bolsheviks, “will now be even more isolated than ever; for those
former boycottists, the Socialist-Revolutionaries, are now not only taking part
in the elections, but are even in favour of a bloc with the Cadets.”

Thisis new and interesting. We have already observed, on a former occasion,
that on this question of electoral agreements the Socialist-Revolutionaries are
not behaving like a political party, but like an intellectualist clique, for we
heard of no open political action of theirorganisationson this
question. And now, assuming that the newspaper for which Mr. Tan writes is not
telling a down right lie and is not repeating an unverified rumour, we shall
draw this further conclusion—namely: in the matter of electoral agreements
the Socialist-Revolutionaries are guilty ofpolitical dishonesty, or,
at any rate, are displaying vacillation that amounts to a political danger.

Everyoneknows that the Conference of the St. Petersburg Social-Democratic
organisation rejected a bloc with the Cadets and offered to enter into an
electoral agreement with the Trudoviks and Socialist-Revolutionariesagainst
the Cadets.Our resolution was published in all the newspapers.

Negotiationsbetween the St. Petersburg Committee of
the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party and the appropriate bodies of the
Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Committee of the Trudovik Grouphave
already taken place. Differences arose over our exclusion of the Popular
Socialists and over the distribution of seats. If,nevertheless, the
Socialist-Revolutionaries, whobegannegotiations with usafterwe had declared that we had definitely decided to give battle to
the Cadets in St. Petersburg, havebegun, or arecontinuing,
negotiations with the Cadets for a bloc, then obviously, the
Socialist-Revolutionaries are guilty ofpolitical dishonesty.

Weopenly declare: We are going to fight the Cadets. Who is on our
side?

Butthe Socialist-Revolutionaries are negotiatingbothwith usandwith the Cadets!

Werepeat: We do not know whether the leading article inRodnaya Zemlyatold the truth or not. We cannot altogether ignore a direct statement made
    by an organ to which Mr. Tan, a member of the Organising Committee of the
    Popular Socialist Party, is a contributor. We have learned about the bloc
    between the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Popular Socialists from the
    press and from the communications made by the Socialist-Revolutionaries in
    their negotiations with us (although we are ignorant of the terms of this
    bloc and of its real nature; in this connection also something is going on
    behind the scenes).

Ourduty, therefore, is to raise this question publicly and openly, so thatallmay know of the behaviour of a certain political party. Hitherto,
in this country, the alignment of parties has been determined only by their
programmes and literature—but these, after all, are only words. The First
Duma provided an opportunity of judgingsomeparties by theiractions. Now we must make use of theelections, too, and we
shall use them for fully enlightening the masses as to therealnature
of the parties.

Thatthe Socialist-Revolutionaries arehidingsomething in their
relations with the Popular Socialists is now a political fact. That the
Socialist-Revolutionaries are now actually trailing in the wake of the
opportunist party that has split off from them is also a fact. Hence, in regard
to revolutionary independence and determination the Socialist-Revolutionaries
are really much worse than they seem to be. And if they agree to enter into a
bloc with the Cadets— and to gain a seat not for themselves, but for the
Popular Socialists—we shall have excellent agitational material with
which to explain to the workers of St. Petersburg the Marxist thesis of the
utter instability and deceptive exterior of the petty-bourgeois (even if
revolutionary) parties.

Wenot only think that it is a matter of honour for a Social-Democrat to
“isolate” himself fromsuchparties, but we think it is the
only well-calculated policy to pursue. But our calculation is made not from the
point of view of seats in the Duma, but from the point of view of the working-
class movement as awhole, from the point of view of the fundamental
interests of socialism.

Butlet us return toRodnaya Zemlya.The following

pas sageshows how frivolous that newspaper can be.

“Generallyspeaking, the decisions of the Bolshevik Conference appear to
have been adopted hastily and rashly. After all, in what respect are

t.heTrudoviks better than the Popular Socialists?”

“Generallyspeaking, the decisions of the Bolshevik Conference appear to
have been adopted hastily and rashly. After all, in what respect are

t.heTrudoviks better than the Popular Socialists?”

This“after all” is a real gem. The author is such an ignoramus in
politics that he does not even realise that he is walking about naked, like an
Australian savage. And these are the educated politicians of the petty
bourgeoisie!

Well,there is nothing for it but to perform the “thankless task” of
the publicist: to go over old ground and teach the
ABC.

TheTrudoviks, i. e., theCommitteeof the Trudovik Group, which was
approached by the St. Petersburg Social-Democratic Conference, and the Popular
Socialists, originated from the Trudovik Group in the First Duma. This Trudovik
Group had two wings: one opportunist, the other revolutionary. The difference
between them was most clearly revealed in thetwoLand Bills introduced
by the Trudovik Group: the Bill of the 104, and the Bill of the 33.

Commonto both Bills is that

(1) they are in favour of transferring the land
from the landlords to the peasants;

(2) they are thoroughly permeated
with the spirit of petty-bourgeois utopianism., the utopia of
“equalising” small proprietors (in some respects, at least) in a
society based on commodity production.

Thedifference between these Bills is that the first is permeated with the
small proprietor’sfearof being too radical, of drawing too large a
mass of poor people into the movement. This “spirit” of the Bill of
the 104 was admirably expressed by one of its authors, one of the leaders of
the Popular Socialists, Mr. Peshekhonov, in referring to the declaration of the
“thrifty muzhiks” in the Duma: “We were sent here to get land,
not to give it up.” This means that in addition to the utopia of petty-bourgeois
equalitarianismthiswing of the Trudoviks clearly expresses theselfishinterests of themore well-to-dosection of the
peasantry, who are afraid lest they might have to “give up”
something (on the assumption that there will be general
“equalisation”, as socialism is conceived by the petty
bourgeois). Take from thelandlord, but give nothing to the proletarian, such is the motto of the party
      of the thrifty muzhiks.

Onthe other hand, the Bill of the 33 proposes the immediate and complete
abolition of private property in land. It also contains the
“equalitarian” utopia, and to the same degree, but it does not
express the fear of having to “give up”. This is the utopia, not of
the opportunist but of the revolutionary petty bourgeois; not of the thrifty
muzhik, but of the ruined muzhik. It is not a dream of profiting from the
landlord to the detriment of the proletarian, it is a dream of making everybody,
including the proletarians, happy by equalisation. It expresses, not the fear of
drawing the broadest and poorest masses into the movement, but the desire to
draw them into the struggle (the desire is there, but the ability or
understanding how to do so is

			      lacking).[1]

Afterthe Duma this difference in the two trends among the Trudoviks led to the
formation of two distinct political organisations: the Committee of the Trudovik
Group, and the Popular Socialist Party. The former has earned an honourable
place in the history of the Russian revolution by its July manifestoes. So far
as public knowledge goes, it has not yet forfeited its good reputation, has
never renounced its manifestoes or joined the chorus of moaners, grousers and
renegades.

Thesecond organisation took advantage of the period of the dissolution of the
Duma to legalise itself under the Stolypin regime, to “berate” the
above-mentioned manifestoes in the legal press, where it was shielded from
criticism from the Left, to advise the people “for the time being”
not to come into conflict with certain institutions of the old regime, and so
forth. The Conference of the St. Petersburg Social-Democratic organisation was,
if anything, rather mild in its criticism of this party when it spoke of its
“evasive position on the fundamental questions of the struggle outside the
Duma”.

Thus,the politicalfactsso far are that the petty-bourgeois or
Trudovik parties have clearly split into the parties ofthe revolutionary petty bourgeoisie (the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the
Committee of the Trudovik Group) and a party of the opportunist petty
bourgeoisie (the Popular Socialists). Since for Social-Democrats the election
campaign is a means for politically educating the masses, here too, by
distinguishing two Trudovik parties from a third, we havecompelledthe
ordinary man in the street toponderover the reasons for this
distinction. And after thinking it out and realising what it is all about he
will make anintelligentchoice.

Inconclusion we must note that the naïve and ignorant leader-writer ofRodnaya Zemlyaindulges also in amusing sophistries to support his
case. It would not be amiss to analyse one of these sophistries, which is of a
kind that just suits philistines:

“TheBolsheviks are wrong even if there is no Black-Hundred danger. For,
in that case, there is no need for a bloc with the Socialist-Revolutionaries and
the Trudoviks, and the Socialist-Democratic Party could with great benefit to
the purity of its class content come out in the elections quite independently.”

Seewhat clever fellows we are, thinks this radical—we can even judge of
the purity of class content!

Yes,the modern newspaper hack “can” make judgements about anything,
but he lacks knowledge and understanding. It is not true to say that the need to
preserve the purity of a class position precludes all agreements. To think so is
to reduce the ideas of Marxism to absurdity, to make a caricature of them. And
it is equally untrue to say that there is no need for a bloc with the
Socialist-Revolutionaries if there is no Black-Hundred danger.

Completeindependence of the Social-Democratic Labour Party in the election
campaign is the general rule. But every live, mass party must allow certain
exceptions, but only within reasonable and strictly defined limits. In the epoch
of the bourgeois revolutionallSocial-Democrats sanctioned political
agreements with therevolutionarybourgeoisie, when they worked
together in the Soviets of Workers’, Peasants’, Soldiers’, Railwaymen’s, etc.,
Deputies, and when they signed the famous manifesto of the Soviet of Workers’
Deputies (December 1905) or the July manifestoes (July1906). The leader-writer ofRodnaya Zemlyais evidently ignorant of
     the most generally known facts about the parts played by the various
     parties in the Russian revolution. The revolutionary Social-Democrats
     reject unprincipled agreements, they reject harmful and unnecessary
     agreements, but they would never think of tying their hands altogether and
     under all circumstances. That would be childish. The platform of the 14
     delegates at the All-Russian Social-Democratic Conference is documentary
     proof of that.

Toproceed. The “necessity” of an agreement with the
Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Trudoviks in St. Petersburg arises from theCadetdanger. Had the author of the leading article inRodnaya
Zemlyabeen familiar with the subject which he undertook to discuss, he
would have known that even among the Social-Democrats who support agreements
with the Cadets there are highly influential bodies (the Bund, for example)
which recognise the need for a bloc with the revolutionary bourgeoisie in case
of a Cadet danger, when there is no Black-Hundred danger. In St. Petersburg, it
would be possible not only to conduct an election campaign in the spirit of
revolutionary and socialist education of the masses (we Social-Democrats will
achieve this in any case), but todefeatthe Cadets, if the Menshevik
Social-Democrats did not betray us, and ifallthe revolutionary
Trudoviks followedallthe socialists. And since we are conducting an
election campaign, we have no right to miss any opportunity of achieving
victory, as long as there is no violation of the principles of socialist
tactics.

Thattheonlyimportant fight being waged in St. Petersburg is that
between the Cadets and the Social-Democrats isprovedby the election
meetings (the same holds good for Moscow, and we may add that the results ofallstraw votes, such as that instituted by the newspaperVek,
or by the Shop Assistants’ Union “Unity and Strength”, have also
confirmed this thesis).[8]

Thatan agreement with the Cadets means the ideological and political hegemony
of the Cadets over their allies is borne out by the whole political press and by
the whole character of the negotiations. The Cadets dictate the terms. The
Cadets publicly lay down thesignificanceof the agreements (recall
their comments on the Mensheviks and the PopularSocialists: “the moderate socialist parties”, “the
opposition bloc”). The Cadets are asked to agree to an equal
distribution of seats as a maximum concession.

Itis equally beyond doubt that an agreement between the Social-Democrats and
the revolutionary-democratic parties means the hegemony of the Social-Democrats
over the petty bourgeoisie. The Social-Democratic press has given an open, clear
and all-round exposition ofallits views, whereas the
Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Committee of the Trudovik Group have made no
independent statement whatever on the question of agreements. The keynote is set
by the Social-Democrats. The modification of their socialist views, of their
class standpoint, is quite out of the question. When it comes to distributing
the seats no one will think of offering them the smaller share. Their campaign
in the workers’ curia is proceeding quite independently, and is proving their
preponderance.

Undersuch circumstances it would be simply absurd to be afraid to lead our
revolutionary petty-bourgeois allies into battle against the Cadets. Under such
circumstances we could even draw the Popular Socialists with us if the occasion
required it. The principles of our Party would not suffer from this in the
least: the political line would remain the same and the struggle against the
leading party of the liberal-bourgeois conciliators would be waged with no less
vigour. No sensible person would say that we were following the Popular
Socialists (in conceding to them, together with the Socialist-Revolutionaries
and the Committee of the Trudovik Group, two seats out of six). On the contrary,
it would be proof that the Social-Democrats were conducting areallyindependent campaign, and that we haddeprivedthe Cadets of one of
their appendages. Is it not obvious that if the semi-Cadets came on our list,
their mobilisation against the Cadets would not merely not prejudice, but would,
on the contrary, facilitate the task of fighting the latter?

TheConference of the St. Petersburg Social-Democratic organisation acted
rightly in declaringopenlyand publicly its hostility towards the
Popular Socialists. It was our duty to warn the revolutionary Trudoviks againstsucha pseudo-Trudovik party. If the revolutionary Trudoviks aredependenton the Popular Socialist Party, which is formally an
    entirely independent party, let them say so publicly. It is most important
    for us to drag this fact into the light of day, to make them admit it, and
    to drawallthe conclusions that follow from it in our agitation
    among the mass of the workers, among the whole people.

Whetherwe get Trudoviks of a better or worse quality as our allies in the fight
against the Cadets in St. Petersburg, is a question that we shall decide in a
purely practical way.
We have formulated our principles.In any casewe shall go into
the fight independently. We have openly disclaimed
responsibility for the least reliable Trudoviks and placed this responsibility
on others.

TheLeft Cadets onTovarishchtried to ridicule the Bolsheviks when
the latter declared, as early as November, that three main parties were
contending against each other in St. Petersburg: the Black Hundreds, the Cadets,
and the Social-Democrats.

Rirabien qui rira le dernier(he who laughs last laughs best).

Ourforecast has been proved correct.

Therewill bethreelists for the Duma elections in St. Petersburg:
the Black-Hundred, the Cadet and the Social-Democratic.

Citizens,make your choice!

[1]Of these and many other petty-bourgeois revolutionaries we might say
what an anarchist poet said about us: “Together we’ll destroy, but not
construct."[9]—Lenin

[2]The pamphlet“When You Hear the Judgement of a
Fool(From the Notes of a Social-Democratic Publicist) was printed in
St. Petersburg in January 1907 by theNovaya DumaPublishers at the
legal Bolshevik print-shopDyelo. Soon after, the police confiscated
almost every copy. In 1912 the tsarist government banned the
pamphlet.

[3]Tan(pseudonym of V. G. Bogoraz)—one of the
organisers of the
semi-Cadet “Popular Socialist Party”.

[4]In the article “A Russian at a Rendezvous”,
written on the basis of Turgenev’s story,Asya, Chernyshevsky branded
the ineffectiveness, and divorce between words and deeds, of the Russian
intelligentsia.

[5]Oblomov—a Russian landlord, the central
character in I. A. Goncharov’s novel of that name. The name Oblomov has become
synonymous with routine, stagnation and inertia.

[6]Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich—characters in Gogol’sTale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarrelled with Ivan
Nikiforovich.

[7]Lenin quotes the words of Chatsky, the main character in
Griboyedov’s comedyWit Works Woe.

[9]Lenin quotes the final line of V.Y.Bryusov’s poemTo Near
Ones.

[8]Lenin is referring to the attempt of the Left-Cadet
newspaperVek(Century) to collect data on the sentiments of the
electors. In its issue No. 5, January 9 (22), 1907, the newspaper published
preliminary results of the voting by its readers: 765 persons voted for the
Cadets and 407 for the Social-Democrats. The other parties received a negligible
number of votes.